We appreciate the enormous support that our ABestWeb community has experienced over the many years it has served its members and sponsors. We have decided to exit this business and have placed the property up for sale and we are actively entertaining interest.

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Just by reading all the information provided on the five links below, anyone can learn how to make a lot of money in a short time, or at least until they get caught and be given another chance or maybe a few more chances if by the time they get caught, they're already a top performer. I see that many of those top performers are still getting away with the way they do the (cookie-whatever-works) since I don't see a real and definitive answer to all the questions posted on any of all of those pages.

I used to believe that the last cookie set, was the cookie that counts in order for a honest affiliate to make the sale if the customer don't click on any other affiliate link, before they get to the check-out page, but I have learned that if my visitor get a drive-by cookie between the time they clicked on the link on my page and the time they're ready to buy the product on the merchant site, then I will be ROB of a possible commission that should be mine.

I now know for sure that some of the original cookies made by the legitimate affiliates, may crumble by those affiliates that use some the tricks listed on the links above and I see that those in charge of fixing the problems don't do nothing about it.

I see some merchants that because some of their top performers are a big money makers, they will not make any changes to their program and even if they have to pay a lot of extra commissions that they should not have to pay, they still want to keep those affiliates.

The way I finally see it.

Not only do we have to deal with all the other crap that's going on with the parasites, search-engine-results-copiers, site copiers, software-malware, etc. But also we have to deal with some merchants that after they know they have a problem on their program, they start to give out excuses and or blame it all on the networks, but on the meant time, while they say they are looking into the problem, they don't do nothing to fix it as soon as possible and then, many months later, they still have not fixed the problem, their top performers keep on milking them and us, so we the regular affiliates only have two choices left:

1 - Keep on complaining to the merchant so they clean their program, because we want to stay with them, because we make some left-over money and we don't want to have to remove some links now and still believe they're going to fix the problems they have one day.

2 - Start looking for a clean substitute merchant and if three months pass by and nothing has been fix by that time, then remove all the links to that merchant, drop that merchant and move on.

The affiliates with the more tricks, will always make the most money, as long as they find a merchant with the door open and a short term, big money goal.

The networks, well, the networks will never lose any money because, they will not have to pay anyone until they get pay first and the more money any affiliate makes, the more money they make.

The merchants are the one's that have to pay everybody, some will do the right thing and pay only what they should pay, some will get greedy and try to grow to fast and pay extra money now and the full price of their actions down the road.

I believe that 90 days is a long enough time to wait for one complain to be resolved one way or the other.

Networks aren't going to be in a rush/fix this problem because they benefit financially.

Merchants should check this out because it hurts their EPC and they could be paying on sales that otherwise would be free on some occassions.

Personally, i don't think it has much affect on my earnings because i don't give my site visitors reason to go elsewhere.

Of all the bad stuff out there, the only thing that has really bothered me are those applications that sit on my site visitors computers that used to switch out my id with theirs, redirect my traffic thru their site or those applications that pop advertising over my site or on my initial traffic to the merchant.

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2 - Start looking for a clean substitute merchant and if three months pass by and nothing has been fix by that time, then remove all the links to that merchant, drop that merchant and move on.
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It looks like this Xmas St. Nick won't be around some sites, so it must be time to start to get ready for St. Valentine's Day, since St. Cookie don't really exist for all the good affiliates.

The key thing is that you're starting to see the many different abuses that can cause the cookie to crumble. Seek out ways to protect yourself from as many abuses as you can and by al means, be vocal against the networks and merchants for supporting these practices.

I've been pointing out the ironies of "the networks compliance departments forever". How in the heck can a few of the people here find abuse so easily and the networks can't? Perhaps because they have a good compliance department? NOT!

Not only do they have "for crap capabilites in detecting abuse", even when abuse is handing to them on a silver platter - it most often results in a "please stop doing that". These issues of not having clear policies and not having clear enforcement is draining domain bound affiliates earnings faster and faster. I submit that clear policies and clear penalties have to be provided before these issues will start to subside and after two years of abuse and compliants - we still dont have that why? Thats right, the networks want their income be it from abuse or not and frankly make much more with abusive practices being allowed to continue. Don't let them BS you, the merchants who you work with or anybody else!

Just working only with the good merchants, is my #1 goal for next January, for now I will just sort the one's I already have and promote more the one's that are making me money now on CJ.

I have some end of the year dropping to do on CJ, Bfree and SaS, I made a few bad choices and wasted a lot of time promoting some merchants on 2004 and thinking that other issues would be resolved by now, but I see that even after more than three years of people complaining here about some problems, things look like they're getting worse for the honest affiliates.

I also know that there are a few good merchants on LS, but like I had posted before, I have not joined LS yet because all of the problems I see posted by LS affiliates on that forum.

While the goal that I had for 2004 so far has been a total illusion, at least I have gained more knowledge and learned how things really works on this business, so I believe that I am ready for 2005, no more wasting time, from now on like the old saying goes "seeing is believing" and I will not be trusting all the hype I read.

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A year have 52 weeks, I am glad there is only 52 days left of this year.

"Seek out ways to protect yourself from as many abuses as you can and by al means, be vocal against the networks and merchants for supporting these practices."

That's exactly what I am planning to do by January. I am sick and tired of all the BS that's going on.

They say don't do this or that, but then you see others do it and when you bring it to their attention, they don't do crap about it, so what the hell, damn if you do and damned if you don't.

Like I said before, the networks will never lose any money because, they will not have to pay anyone until they get pay first and the more money any affiliate makes, the more money they make.

So it's up to the merchants if they want to play fair or not and up to us if we want to get dirty and play by their not enforced BS rules.

All I know is that by now, almost everyone here, networks, merchants and affiliates, we all know what is right and what is wrong, what is the truth and what is BS, and more significantly what each and every single one of us can do about whatever must be done in order to avoid the lies, the abuses, the false promises and all the BS that never ends.